Travel between the Empire and the Alliance

[Rai'faani Meorrrei]

A question recently crossed my mind on the current state of galactic politics. What is the current status on people who are traveling between the two nations but who aren't under arms? Civilians and such? Is a complete state of isolationism in effect (ex North/South Korea), is it a conditional travel scenario where people can only travel to relatives, a certain number of times a year, or if they're rich enough to afford it (ex USA/USSR) or is it effectively open civilian transit with the rare exception of refusal for sketchy terroristy folk (ex USA/China)

I'd like to know what reality we're looking at, especially considering we may have an exodus of people from the Alliance into Corellia, or to/from the Alliance to Bespin or Coruscant. I think to keep avenues of RP open, we probably ought to consider erring on the lax side of letting folks in and out of places, unless they're obviously riding dirty / up to no good.

[Captain Untouchable]

Something to tac on the back of that: what about cargo, as well as people? Is the border completely locked down (only smugglers can get things across), or is there some sort of trade agreement / customs agreement? Is there some sort of overlap - you can enter our country, but only if you are not carrying any items on the list of banned Alliance produce?

[Miri Jitaurree]

It might help to clarify what we mean when we talk about travel between the Alliance and the Empire. I don't know how these things are typically handled in the Star Wars universe, but this is what makes sense to me.

The concept of terrestrial borders, with fences, guard towers, and finite border crossings, simply doesn't translate to space. Imperial and Alliance territory is really defined by the star systems they control and how far they can project their naval power/surveillance from those colonized systems. We can draw an imaginary line through interstellar space, but you can't put border security stations or blockades on a border that's thousands of light years across - there simply aren't enough ships in the galaxy. Even if we're only talking about the major hyperspace lanes, you can always go around.

As I understand it, there is a demilitarized zone between Alliance and Imperial territories that the Alliance and Imperial navies are forbidden by treaty to cross, and it's safe to say the area is monitored closely enough that any military hyperspace signatures are going to draw attention in a big way. But it's simply not practical to stop every private ship traveling through the zone. There's too much space in space. However, those ships have to make berth somewhere. If the Corellian freighter Century Hawk is stopping at Bespin, it has to go through Imperial customs, and if it's been through Alliance territory any time recently, its crew will be subject to a lot of hard questions. If it stops somewhere more remote like Tatooine, chances are it could slip in more or less unnoticed. On the other extreme, if it's headed on an unscheduled flight path to Coruscant, early warning systems will probably send a cruiser or two to intercept it en route. But the bottleneck happens at the destination, not at the border, unless it's unlucky enough to fly straight into an Imperial patrol.

[Reshmar]

Maybe that is something the senate can hammer out. Some sort of agreement on commerce and travel.

[Captain Untouchable]

As I understand it, there is a demilitarized zone between Alliance and Imperial territories that the Alliance and Imperial navies are forbidden by treaty to cross.

There is and there isn't. The vast majority of the border follows the lines on a map that have been defining sectors for ten thousand years or so; so the border butts up pretty close in places. However, there are "accidental" neutral zones (such as the sectors containing Zeltros and Manaan in the Inner Rim) where the Treaty forced the Galactic Empire to pull out, but the Alliance of Free Planets hasn't expanded it's sphere of influence into them yet. In time, these sectors may or may not throw in their lot with the Alliance.

What you're describing sounds very similar to air travel though, and I think that's a good way to go. When I flew from the UK to the USA a few weeks ago, the transatlantic leg of my journey landed in Charlotte, NC. Being the first time in the trip my boots had touched the ground in America, I went through immigration, and my luggage was offloaded from the plane so I could carry it through customs. My luggage was then rechecked, I went back through security, and boarded my internal flight to Birmingham. Travelling in the opposite direction however, I breezed through Charlotte: I was still inside the USA, so they didn't give a monkeys about what was in my luggage; and didn't encounter customs again until landing in the UK.

That seems like a simple/real enough scenario that people can channel the blood-curdling, eye-rolling frustration of having had to stand in line for two hours enduring it... and it also makes planets like Junction more interesting. Junction is a planet on the Hydian Way, within Alliance borders but with no political ties to the Senate: they don't pay taxes, don't benefit from funding/schemes/aid/etc. Since it's not an Alliance world, the Alliance might struggle to have customs/immigration there, which turns it into the galactic equivalent of duty free: if you want shit from Imperial territory (eg. Corellian brandy), you can go to Junction, buy it there, and possibly get away without having to pay all of the Alliance's taxes on it? Makes free worlds / free ports much more of a conundrum for the Alliance, and might force them to do stuff (a TSA garrison?) that feels a little bit too... Imperial for their liking.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

It might help to clarify what we mean when we talk about travel between the Alliance and the Empire. I don't know how these things are typically handled in the Star Wars universe, but this is what makes sense to me.

The concept of terrestrial borders, with fences, guard towers, and finite border crossings, simply doesn't translate to space. Imperial and Alliance territory is really defined by the star systems they control and how far they can project their naval power/surveillance from those colonized systems. We can draw an imaginary line through interstellar space, but you can't put border security stations or blockades on a border that's thousands of light years across - there simply aren't enough ships in the galaxy. Even if we're only talking about the major hyperspace lanes, you can always go around.

As I understand it, there is a demilitarized zone between Alliance and Imperial territories that the Alliance and Imperial navies are forbidden by treaty to cross, and it's safe to say the area is monitored closely enough that any military hyperspace signatures are going to draw attention in a big way. But it's simply not practical to stop every private ship traveling through the zone. There's too much space in space. However, those ships have to make berth somewhere. If the Corellian freighter Century Hawk is stopping at Bespin, it has to go through Imperial customs, and if it's been through Alliance territory any time recently, its crew will be subject to a lot of hard questions. If it stops somewhere more remote like Tatooine, chances are it could slip in more or less unnoticed. On the other extreme, if it's headed on an unscheduled flight path to Coruscant, early warning systems will probably send a cruiser or two to intercept it en route. But the bottleneck happens at the destination, not at the border, unless it's unlucky enough to fly straight into an Imperial patrol.

I like this. :)